We're pleased to present this guest post from AUX Channel Producer, Sam Sutherland as we count down to the Polaris Music Prize gala being broadcast on YouTube for the first time.

Polaris Music Prize gala is now in its eighth year – modeled after similarly righteous prizes like the U.K.’s Mercury Prize, it recognizes the best Canadian album of the past 12 months as voted by a jury of super cool and smart and handsome journalists and media types. (Of which I am a biased part.)

“Selected solely on artistic merit without regard to genre, sales history or label affiliation,” Polaris has built a reputation of credibility and risk – past winners range from Sesame Street-approved Feist to spacey francophones Karkwa, plus perennial treasures Arcade Fire and Caribou.

Its annual gala, where the 10 shortlisted nominees perform before a winner is crowned and the requisite $30,000 giant novelty cheque is handed out, is consistently one of the most exciting concerts of the year; every September it brings together the best our country has to offer. Literally.

This is the first year that AUX (the super cool and smart and handsome place that I work as a producer) will be Polaris’ media partner. For the uninitiated, AUX is a Canadian broadcast channel, an award-winning digital magazine, a pretty sweet website, and a growing YouTube channel. The latter is where we will be broadcasting the 8th annual Polaris Music Prize Gala on September 23 starting at 7:00 p.m. EST.

In the past, Polaris was produced like a television show, for television. But since securing our Polaris partnership/pals status officially this spring, our approach to the Prize has been focused on building content around the event and the music it celebrates in the place we all go to find it – on YouTube. We’ve been traveling across North America all summer doing interviews and producing mini documentaries on each of the short-listed artists. They’re fun. You should watch them, like this one here: How Tegan and Sara wrote "Closer"

AUX’s approach has been to mimic Polaris’, which is why our stream on YouTube will be available everywhere in the world, fully embeddable, rewind-able, and immediately online for fresh viewing after the winner is announced. All for the first time in
Polaris history.

We aren’t just broadcasting the show, either – AUX will give viewers a chance to engage with artists, jury members, and past winners through multiple social platforms in our simultaneous backstage stream, just one click away from the big room and full-scale performances and baked into a single YouTube stream. It’s a way of ensuring that something exciting is always happening for fans at home, whether they’re waiting for a stage changeover to wrap or their favourite artist to make an appearance.

We’re excited – sleeplessly, ulcer-inducingly excited – about being a part of the Polaris Music Prize and the new ways to open the evening up to anyone with an internet connection and interest in Canadian music.